police fail to investigate sex attacks across six london boroughs

A man accused of rape was allowed to walk free and kill two children as a result of a policy to manipulate crime statistics

Vikram Dodd
The Guardian, Tuesday 26 February 2013 17.15 EST

A man accused of rape was allowed to walk free and later kill two children as a result of a "disturbing" police policy to manipulate crime statistics by failing to record sexual assault allegations – a tactic that was employed in several more London boroughs than was officially admitted on Tuesday, the Guardian has learned.
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The resulting policy led to scores of women in boroughs such as Haringey having their allegations not classed as crimes instead of being investigated by police. When the practices were spotted by Metropolitan police chiefs and corrected, it led to a 25% spike in recorded sexual offences in a year, a rise of 469 recorded incidents, a source said.

Tuesday's report from the IPCC focused on the policy of a specialist Met sex crimes unit based in Southwark, south London, which was branded as "deeply disturbing".
The IPCC said the Sapphire unit in Southwark tried to persuade women who reported they had been sexually attacked to drop their cases.
It did so to boost its performance figures, which were among the worst in the Met.

The policy had disastrous consequences. A woman who made rape allegations against Jean Say in November 2008 did not have her case investigated.
Say went on to murder his daughter Regina, aged 8, and son Rolls, aged 10, with a carving knife, with police having missed the chance to take him off the streets. He was later jailed for
life. The IPCC report says a detective decided that the woman who earlier made rape allegations against Say had consented to sex. Thus no forensics were taken and the suspect was not even interviewed about the rape allegation.
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The IPCC also revealed other Met failings. It said that officers involved in alleged blunders – which left the serial sex attacker Kirk Reid free to assault an estimated 71 women – had not faced a disciplinary panel, despite the watchdog saying they should answer charges of gross
misconduct. Furthermore, two officers who should have faced discipline hearings were in fact promoted.